204 INDIKECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



How dear are their books, their cabinets of the various pro- 

 ductions of nature, and their collections of prints and other 

 works of art and science, to the learned, the scientific, and 

 the virtuosi ! Even these precious treasures have their insect 

 enemies. The larva of Aglossa jnnguinalis, whose ravages in 

 another quarter I have noticed before ^ will establish itself 

 upon the binding of a book, and spinning a robe, which it 

 covers with its own excrement^, will do it no little injury; 

 as also does a minute beetle of the family of Scolytidce {Hy- 

 pothenemus eruditus Westw.), which Mr. Westwood found 

 burrowing in considerable numbers in the same situation."^ A 

 mite (^Clieyletus eruditus) eats the paste that fastens the paper 

 over the edges of the binding, and so loosens it.* I have also 

 often observed the caterpillar of another little moth, of which 

 I have not ascertained the species, that takes its station in 

 damp old books, between the leaves, and there commits great 

 ravages ; and many a black-letter rarity, which in these days 

 of Bibliomania would have been valued at its weight in gold, 

 has been snatched by these destroyers from the hands of 

 book-collectors. The little wood-boring beetles before men- 

 tioned {Anobium pertinax and striatum) also attacks books, and 

 will even bore through several volumes. M. Peignot men- 

 tions an instance where, in a public library but little fre- 

 quented, twenty-seven folio volumes were perforated in a 

 straight line by the same insect (probably one of these species), 

 in such a manner that on passing a string through the perfectly 

 round hole made by it these twenty-seven volumes could be 

 raised at once.^ The animals last mentioned also destroy 



consequently what danger exists of its being introduced into the wood-work of 

 our docks and piers communicating with our salt-water rivers, as at Hull, 

 Liverpool, Bristol, Ipswich, &c., where it might be far more injurious than even 

 on the coast, I have, since December 15th, 1815, when Mr. Lutwidge was so 

 kind as to furnish me with a piece of oak full of the insects in a living state, 

 poured a weak solution of common salt over the wood every other day, so as to 

 keep the insects constantly wet. On examining it this day (Feb. 5th, 1816) I 

 found them alive ; and, what seems to prove them in as good health as in their 

 natural habitat, numbers have established themselves in a piece of fir- wood which 

 I nailed to the oak, and have in this short interval, and in winter too, bored 

 many cells in it. 



1 Seep. 197. 2 Reaum. iii. 270. 



3 Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. i. 34. 4 Schrank, Enum. Ins. Austr. 513. 1058. 

 5 Home's Introd. to Biblioyrophy, i. 311. 



